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LECTURE 



ON THE 



MECHANICAL INDUSTRY 



AND THE 



INVENTIVE GENIUS OF AMERICA. 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



Maryland Institute for Promoting the Mechanic Arts, 



BALTIMORE, JANUARY 16, 1849. 



BY WALTER R. JOHNSON. 




BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED BY SANDS & MILLS, 
128 Baltimore street, over American office. 




LECTUKE 



ON THE 



MECHANICAL INDUSTRY 



AND THE 



INVENTIVE GENIUS OF AMERICA. 



bELIVERED BEFORE THE 



Maryland Institute for Promoting the Meclianic Arts, 



BALTIMORE, JANUARY 16, 1849. 

■V. '-^ 



BY WALTER RV JOHNSON. 



BALTIMORE: 

PRINTED BY SANDS & MILLS, 
128 Baltimore street, over American office. 



Baltimore, February 5th, 1849. 
Professor W. R. JOHNSON. 

Dear Sir : Since your recent able lecture before the Maryland Institute^ 
of this city, I have been desired, on behalf of the Committee on Lectures, to 
solicit a copy of said lecture for publication. 

I now make the solicitation, and trust that it may be both convenient and 
agreeable to you to furnish the Institute with matter embracing so much infor- 
mation instructive and interesting to its members. 

With the highest regard. 

Your friend and obedient servant, 

JOSHUA VANSANT, 
President of the Maryland Institute for promoting the Mechanic Arts. 



Washington, February lOth, 1849. 
To JOSHUA VANSANT, Esa, 

President of the Maryland Institute, 

Dear Sir : It gives me great pleasure to comply with the desire so 
obhgingly expressed in your favor of the 5th instant 3 and I shall, at the earliest 
moment, when my duties will permit, forward a copy of the lecture for the pur- 
pose indicated. The success of the industrial arts, for which your flourishing 
Institution has been founded, has long been an object of deep interest with me, 
and 1 shall feel great satisfaction if this humble effort to aid their cause has been, 
in any degree, conducive to so desirable an end. 

Please accept for yourself, and communicate to the members of your 
Society, the assurances of my highest esteem and consideration. 

Yours respectfully, 

WALTER R. JOHNSON. 



^^l 



6 



LECTURE. 



In selecting a topic on which to address a body of practical cultivators 
of art and ingenuity, I have thought proper to give preference to one which 
concerns their own more immediate interests and pursuits, and proposed 
to offer some facts, observations and reflections on the Mechanical Industry 
and the Inventive Genius of America. 

I might, doubtless, have chosen a theme more abounding in topics for 
abstract speculation, more susceptible of rhetorical ornament, more replete 
with elements, out of which popular enthusiasm is elaborated; but, be- 
lieving that the useful arts need not the meretricious aid of ornament to 
render them attractive, I have preferred td ask your indulgence for giving 
expression to the thoughts which have occurred on this subject in the 
plain, unvarnished words of truth and soberness. 

In selecting the subject just mentioned, two objects have been proposed : 
first, to call to mind some of the circumstances which give peculiar interest 
to the mechanic arts and industry of our country, with reference to the 
part which they have taken in promoting the welfare of the community, 
whether viewed by themselves or in contrast with the like arts in other 
times ; and, second, to establish the relation between mechanical industry 
and inventive ingenuity, and thence to deduce a still higher obligation 
which society owes to the mechanical arts. 

In whichever of these lights we choose to regard mechanical industry, 
whether simply as contributing to the direct supply of our bodily comforts, 
or as furnishing the occasion and the stimulus to a deeper penetration into 
the laws of nature, and more just applications of them in the form of 
inventions, in either view we cannot fail to find matter of felicitation in 
every circumstance, which promotes the permanent welfare of so large and 
important a class of society as the mechanics themselves. Their efforts in 
the cause of education, social improvement, and all the higher purposes of 
intellectual and moral advancement, give them a claim upon the respect 
and confidence of all other classes and professions of men. Especially 
has the establishment of institutions, of the nature of that which I have the 
honor to address, marked a distinct era in the progress of our race, im- 
pressed a character on both the arts and the artizans of our time, and made 



discovery and improvement — not blood and plunder, to stand forth as the 
bold, prominent features of the nineteenth century. Instead of merely 
protecting the pecuniary interests of small trades and crafts, by close cor- 
porations, whose chief aims, in ancient times, were to encourage clanship, 
and to keep out interlopers from their special trade or calling, we now 
contemplate large and liberally constituted societies, laboring in the com- 
mon cause of improvement — striving for the diffusion of knowledge — 
vieing, with a generous rivalry, in the advancement of all useful arts, and in 
the cultivation of those sciences on which the successful practice of those 
arts depends. 

In speaking of mechanical industry, we shall be understood not to limit 
the term to any narrow signification, but to comprehend that wide range 
of occupations and callings which imply the possession of some peculiar 
tact, talent or ingenuity, or some acquired skill or dexterity in producing 
certain results. This latter characteristic of the mechanic is, sometimes, 
attained by the mere routine of long practice, and involves little either of 
iatellectual power or of any resolute and fixed purpose of the will. It is 
this possession of only the capacity to use the thews and sinews, the bones 
and muscles of his body, that makes what is sometimes called a human 
machine — a term indicative of the smallest amount of humanity which is 
required to exercise a certain quantity of brute mechanical force. 

The other class of mechanics — such as possess tact, talent and practical 
intelligence — are, unquestionably, those on whom not only the influence 
of the class, but the success of individual enterprizes, must mainly depend. 
No one can fail to mark the difference, in capacity for combining and con- 
trolling the forces of nature, between individuals engaged in mechanical 
pursuits. One shall judge at a glance of the fitness of certain means or 
implements to effect a given mechanical purpose, while another shall hesi- 
tate long, and, at last, decide without any reliable grounds, and will, 
therefore, be at least half the time wrong in his selection of means, and 
inefficient in his endeavors to accomplish the work in hand. This differ- 
ence is the more marked, the newer and more intricate is the operation to 
be performed. It might afford a curious subject of speculation to inquire 
from what cause originates this difference between different arlizans, in 
regard to their power of judging and applying the materials, implements 
and labor of their respective trades ; whether it proceed from a difference 
in their original constitution, from want of early culture of the senses, or a 
want of interest in the business, in the one, which the other does not be- 
tray. It is enough for our purpose to know that well directed effort and 
study, will, in a great measure, remove the difficulties which the most un- 



handy meclianic had at first experienced, and consequently, whether an 
individual shall remain a human machine or not, will depend very much on 
his own M^ill'and his own exertions. 

It is one of the purposes of the Mechanics' Institutes of our time, and 
especially of those in our own country, to enable every mechanic, who is 
so disposed, while he retains the human^ to put off the machine ; while he 
works with the head and the hand conjoined, to gain all, and more than 
all, the success and profit of his calling, which could be expected while 
he wrought with the hand alone. It is the extent to which the mechanics 
of our country avail themselves of the means at their command for acquiring 
knowledge, that constitutes the first circumstance of peculiar interest in the 
arts themselves. It is the circumstance in which they differ most widely 
from the corresponding classes in older countries and in other times. 

One of the most interesting themes of contemplation to the philanthropist, 
the patriot and the christian moralist, is the productive industry of a nation, 
when guided and controlled, in every gradation of operatives, by principle 
— by intelligence — and by that high sense of moral obligation which 
accompanies a sense of the dignity of laior. 

In whatever work of productive industry the efforts of men are engaged, 
whether in bringing forth from the earth its mineral treasures, in removing 
forests and giving fertility to its surface, in rearing and nourishing domestic 
animals, in traversing the ocean to gather the productions of remotest 
lands, or, by the exercise of mechanical skill, in giving to those productions 
new forms, new applications and new values, — in each and all of these 
varied pursuits of industry, the utility of acquiring a knowledge of just 
principles, as the basis of all practice, is almost too obvious to need even a 
formal statement. The bare existence of schools of mines, in various 
countries — of agricultural and nautical schools, together with polytechnic 
and mechanics' institutes, — is a sufficient proof of the general estimate 
which experience has taught men to place upon the practical sciences. 
It is these sciences, that, more than any thing else, tend to divest the indus- 
trious men who pursue those arts of the character of mere machines. 

The mechanical, more, perhaps, ihan any other industrious classes, have 
occasion to cultivate the higher faculties of the mind, since their very vo- 
cations call for the application of principles sometimes abstruse, always im- 
portant, and never to be neglected, — while their social position, congre- 
gated frequently in masses, while it favors the spread of intelligence, at the 
same time favours moral delinquency ; and consequently, still more calls 
for the higher efforts of education, and the stern exercise of a virtuous 
resolution. 



6 

It is a source of the highest pride to every American patriot, that the 
mechanical and manufacturing industry of our country, while rising to an 
equality in point of skill with that of older communities abroad, has far 
surpassed it in the social, moral and intellectual condition of the manufac- 
turing operatives. 

The forces of nature and the powers of mind are both brought into more 
frequent and more vigorous action by the cultivator of the useful arts, than 
by any other industrious occupation. 

• The general sentiments of men have favoured and respected, even in 
their rural simplicity, the talents of the artisan. Thus our poet* who has 
sung " of the Acadian lands," where '' gentle Evangeline lived," has told 
us of " Basil, the Blacksmith : 

"Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men ; 
For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, 
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people." 

To form some just conception of the advantageous position which the 
mechanical industry of America has won for itself, in comparison with the 
same industry in other days, we may consult the records of those times 
when royal edicts and arbitrary decrees undertook to control in every 
minute particular the labours of the artisan. To make the contrast more 
striking, we may look back two or three centuries into the feudal times of 
continental Europe, to the period when governments were accustomed to 
establish among artizans, certain companies or communities, which in 
virtue of their charters, enjoyed " licenses or privileges for the sole buying, 
selling, making, working and using of the thing or things specified ; and 
whereby others were restrained from that liberty of manufacturing or 
trading, which all had enjoyed previously to the grant. At the first 
statement, this special privilege of manufacturing and trading may appear to 
bear some analogy to the special exclusive rights granted by our modern 
patent laws, and the laws of copyright. But such is not the fact. Our 
modern laws give temporary exclusive enjoyment, only of that which the 
discoverer, inventor or author has added to the previously existing stock 
of science, art, or literature ; and so thoroughly practical and utilitarian are 
these modern statutes, that every improvement is required to be reduced to 
an available shape, admitting of description and of sensible representation. 
The ancient statutes, ordinances and edicts, on the contrary, took away 
from the public at large, the right to exercise certain industrious callings, 
and conferred it on a limited number of persons, who, with their succes- 

*Longfellow's Evangeline, p. 19. 



8ors, also limited in number, were to enjoy the perpetual and exclusive 
right to exercise the branch of industry assigned them. 

These statutes, and the companies which they created, became, as a 
matter of course, engines of favour to individuals, or the means of extorting 
from subjects the revenues to maintain the monarch, his favorites and de- 
pendents. It was a part of this system, to limit the number of persons 
who were allowed to enter each branch of industry and compete for the 
advantages of its prosecution. This restraint upon general competition, it 
has been attempted to revive in some of the enlightened nations of conti- 
nental Europe. Thus prior to the revolution of 1830, the French govern- 
ment undertook to grant or withhold authorizations to form establishments 
for prosecuting any of the ordinary branches of business, such as those of 
bakers, printers, exchange brokers, and the like ; — and the direct tendency 
of this limitation was to enable the old establishments, at the pleasure of 
the administration, to enjoy as complete a monopoly of their respective 
trades, as if they had been secured by the ancient charter system of the 
feudal times. The only resource of those who desired to establish them- 
selves in particular departments of industry, was to buy out, often at 
exorbitant prices, those already engaged in the desired occupation, and to 
prosecute the business in the character of successors. 

Now what was the practical working and the actual result of the ancient 
system of restriction and monopoly ? The history of the subject is nearly 
the same for all the feudal governments of Europe, and may be exemplified 
in that of France. It will require but a brief retrospect into those bye-gone 
ages to place the odious exactions, to which the industrious artizan was 
then subjected, in sufficiently strong contrast with the free competition and 
unshackled enterprise which prevail among ourselves at the present day. ■ 

It will show us how hollow, deceitful, and often insolent, was that pa- 
tronage which kings and courtiers were wont to vouchsafe under the name 
of special privileges^ in comparison with the unbought approval, the 
voluntary rewards of an intelligent community, free to give or withhold 
its encouragement, and ever keen sighted to discover who does, and who 
does not, merit the rewards of honest and skilful industry. 

In the year 1415, was published in Paris, aa ordinance containing 700 
sections, professedly for defining the rights and obligations of the provosts 
of the merchants, and sheriffs of that city, and regulating the police, the im- 
posts, and the supplies of ports and markets. 

This ordinance created or continued a vast number of offices: — measurers, 
salesmen, brokers, gangers, dischargers of goods, accountants, criers of 
merchandize of every description, as of hay, grain, flour, wine, wood, coal, 



8 

salt, plaster and fish, leeks and onions, nuts and apples, medlars and 
chestnuts. 

It provides in detail for the regulation of the expenditures which every 
officer is required to make for the benefit of his fellow craftsmen ac the time 
of entering on his new office ; this legalized requirement of hospitality 
being, no doubt, founded in part upon the previously existing usages and 
customs of the self constituted fraternities. 

Some of the requirements are not only quaint and curious, but strikingly 
illustrative of the spirit which dictated the whole ordinance, showing to 
what unmanly devices monarchs and their courtiers were capable of resort- 
ing for the purpose of filling their coflers. The worshipful fraternities of 
criers of wine and criers of corpses, (that is, the dram sellers and the funer- 
al undertakers,) were among other onerous regulations, subjected to a rule 
*' whenever one of their numbers, or one of their wives, is deceased, all the 
said criers shall go in procession to convey the body of the deceased from 
the house or other place from which it is to be taken to the place of se- 
pulture — all with their bells (if they have any) ringing before the body — 
under pain, in case of failure, of forfeiting half a pound of wax, each, to be 
applied for the benefit of the fraternity."" " With them shall go two of the 
said criers, keeping near the body of the crier deceased, the one carrying a 
jar of wine, and the other a goodly drinking cup — to present and give drink 
to all those who shall be carrying the body, and to all others loho shall 
wish to drink. And the bearers shall set the body down on two tressels at 
every cross way; and while it lies there, the flagon bearer and the cup 
bearer shall give drink to all present, at the expense of the fraternity." If 
this last provision of the ordinance was designed to secure a full attendance 
at the funeral, it may possibly at that day, have answered well its purpose. 

Now please to remark that of the fines, confiscations, and forfeitures 
incurred by members of the numerous fraternities erected, or continued in 
being by this ordinance of 1415, one half went into the coffers of the kingy 
by whose fiat they were created, and the other half to the city of Paris, 
the finances of M'hich were, of course, always more or less under the king's 
control. This fact in respect to the disposition of the funds may serve to 
explain why so many frivolous provisions, so many requirements, the ne- 
glect of which incurred pecuniary penalties, were incorporated into the or- 
dinance. They were evidently designed as so many <•• meshes of the law," 
intended to entrap the unwary, — lead them to violate some petty provision 
of the statute, and then catch the fine, or forfeiture annexed to such viola- 
tion. 

In the year 1467, or about 50 years later than the period of which we 



have been speaking, Louis the 11th formed all the trades people of Paris 
into military companies under their respective leaders, amounting in all to 
some sixty different corps, gave each an appropriate banner, and in order 
to make them more subservient to his purposes, — to strengthen his own 
authority against that of the powerful nobles of his kingdom, — he compelled 
every member to swear on the Holy Evangelists, and under penalty of the 
perdition of his soul, an oath of immediate fidelity and obedience to the 
king. These companies naturally fell into rivalries, and grew jealous of 
each other, became involved in disputes about precedence, jurisdictions, 
and other questions respecting their real or imaginary chartered rights. 
This suited exactly the purposes of royalty : for whichever party was 
proved to have violated its charter by trenching on the privileges of another, 
was, we may presume, compelled to forfeit and pay a handsome penalty 
to the crown. In these bickerings and animosities they expended all that 
virulence, and all those resources, which if husbanded and combined, might 
have been turned against royalty itself, and have hastened by three or four 
centuries the period of a demolished Baslile, or the days of the blouses 
and the barricades. 

The officers of the companies created by Louis XI. were sometimes en- 
dowed with high sounding titles, such as "kings, princes, wardens, keepers, 
priors and syndics," each having his ensigns, badges and paraphernalia of 
office. 

They were not only allowed to assume the name and semblance, but in 
some instances also nearly the prerogatives of absolute sovereigns, and be- 
came petty tyrants over the unfortunate subordinates of their craft. They 
took upon themselves to admit or reject all apprentices, journeymen, and 
master workmen, in their several callings — to visit, inspect and discipline 
the members of their respective communities — to levy taxes, impose fines, 
decree forfeiture, and in general to administer all the affairs of the cor- 
poration. 

The king of the silk dealers received his investiture — his insignia of office 

— from no less a personage than the grand chamberlain of France; and the 

dominion of this monarch of the silks^ was co-extensive in regard to his 

craft, with that of his royal master himself; he being allowed to control 

not only the silk dealers of Paris, but those of all France. He inspected 

their weights, their measures, their merchandize ; he stipulated the amount 

of bonds to be paid by new members when admitted to prosecute the trade; 

and so arbitrarily did he play the petty tyrant, that in 1597, Henry IV. 

was compelled, in vindication of his own authority to abolish the office of 

this mock monarch, and to signify that the functions of royalty belonged 

to the wearer, not to the seller of the silken robes. 
2 . 



10 

But, in general, the corporations, wardenships, and monopolies continued 
in full force until about the last quarter of the seventeenth century, when 
the change of men's opinions in favor of moral right, instead of brute force; 
in favor of industry and honest labor, instead of conquest and rapine, 
enabled the enlightened Colbert, minister of Louis XIV. to discern and ap- 
ply the remedies for those evils under which the useful arts had so long 
labored. 

The absurd and oppressive system of rules and customs v*ras then, for a 
time, made to give way to more enlightened plans of promoting industry- 
The manufactures of wool, silk, glass and steel were either introduced, or 
liberally encouraged by Colbert ; and it is affirmed that scarcely a year 
elapsed during his administration, that did not witness some new and use- 
ful branch of industry established in the country. He invited artizans from 
England, Holland and Italy, to establish themselves in the French domin- 
ions in order to prosecute their respective trades. 

The young mechanics of France eagerly embraced the opportunity of 
learning the new branches of manufacture, and in six years after the liber- 
al policy of that distinguished statesman came into action, more than forty- 
two thousand looms were found employed in the manufacture of fine 
cloths. 

The wisdom of Colbert was not limited to the mere fostering of handi- 
crafts. He looked upon the internal communications of his country as 
essentially interwoven with her arts and her industry ; and that magnificent 
work the Grand Canal of Languedoc, is, to this day, as proud a monument 
to the memory of Colbert, as a similar work in our own country is to that 
of Clinton. 

But to the arts and artizans of France, the age of that celebrated minister 
was but a gleam of morning light, soon to be overcast with a gloom deeper 
if possible than the night which had preceded. His wise and liberal mea- 
sures for fostering the useful arts were soon compelled to give way before 
the pecuniary necessities of the monarch, whom he served. Within eight 
years after the death of the minister, the whole of his enlightened system 
was overthrown, and in its place were introduced hosts of regulations, 
impositions and hereditary offices, all dependent on the crown, and of 
course owing tribute to the power which created them. During those 
eight years, not less than forty thousand such offices were established, and 
sold for the benefit of the royal treasury. Trade and commerce, no less 
than arts and industry were shackled in a thousand ways, by the interven- 
tion of those officers, in every transaction between man and man. To 
augment the expenses of individuals and to increase the revenues of gov- 



11 

ernment, arts the most trivial were elevated to the importance of having 
officers of Stale for their regulation. Thus wine dealers were made coun- 
sellors of the king, and so were the overseers of the piling of wood. There 
were royal counsellors of the police, and royal wig barbers. There were 
inspectors general of fresh butter, and assayers general of salt butter. 

Ridiculous as these things appeared to us, says a celebrated French 
writer,* they were doubtless "no joke" to the unfortunate trades' people 
who were subjected to the dictation of these inflated officials. 

One glaring evil of the system, therefore, was to make the industrious 
classes the direct tools and instruments of political power. 

Another has already been referred to, in speaking of the mutual animosities 
and disputes engendered, by a similar system, at a period long prior to that 
of which we are now speaking. 

Indeed, it may be asserted that unnatural or merely artificial institutions 
ever tend to breed morbid conditions of the body politic, and to produce, 
among other fruits, numerous imaginary causes for quarrels and litigation. 

A few examples may illustrate our position, while they may not be 
wholly without significance, as warnings to us of the present day. 

Between the corporation of the tailors of Paris and the corporation of 
the sellers of old clothes there arose, in 1530, a contest at law, the principal . 
point of which was to determine the precise difference or line of demarca- 
tion between a garment finished and a second-hand garment ; in other 
words, what is the exact specific and logical distinction between a new coat 
and an old coat f How long must a new coat be kept, and how much 
must it be worn, if worn at all, before it passes out of the jurisdiction of 
the tailors into that of the fraternity of old clothes-men ? 

If any of the particular garments about which this grave controversy 
first originated were really new at the time it began, they must doubtless 
have become threadbare and have belonged to the old clothes men long 
before it was ended ; for we are assured it was still unsettled in 1776, after 
the lapse oiiwo hundred and forty-six years. 

In all this time, it is fair to infer that the learned bar and the worshipful 
bench who kept the mattter in hand were not allowed to remain in igno- 
rance of the practical distinction between an old coat and a new one. 
Stipends, fees and gratuities are potent means of procuring appeals. 

Between the shoemakers and the shoe-menders or cobblers, or be- 
tween new shoes and old shoes^ law suits existed for at least an equal 
length of time, and were presented with equal animosity. 

•Voltaire. 



The expenses annually incurred by the corporations and fraternities of 
Paris, for the sole purpose of sustaining and defending their corporate 
interests, have been estimated, by a modern writer, to have exceeded 
$160,000; and this enormous sum, the public, of course, eventually paid, 
in the form of additions to the price of labor or of its productions — a mon- 
strous tax levied to sustain a narrow, selfish, worse than useless policy. 

In 1776, the illustrious Turgot succeeded in obtaining a repeal of the ty- 
rannical wardenships and corporations. The depression of the national 
industry had so evidently proceeded from this corrupt source that a plain 
statement of facts was alone necessary to convince the nation of the indis- 
pensable necessity of such a measure. 

The repealmg statute shows that the supposed financial advantages de- 
rived by the crown, from the contributions of the corporate bodies, was a 
mere illusion. But it was an illusion so much the more dangerous as it 
had emboldened some of the partizans of the old system to push their doc- 
trine of royal privileges to the extent of asserting that the very right of 
working was a royal right, which the king might sell at his pleasure, and 
which the subject must duy^ if he wished to possess and exercise it. 

The measure of Turgot remedied many monstrous abuses. Its evident 
tendency was to promote the national industry, but so deep seated were the 
cancerous corruptions which had, through long ages of oppression and mis- 
rule, been festering in the body politic, that even with all the popularity of 
the minister and all the justice of his cause, it was found impracticable to 
withstand the influence of those abuses which the corporations were in- 
terested and pledged to uphold. Accordingly we find that the repeal which 
he had effected lasted only from March to August of the same year. After 
that brief period, the industrious classes were again put under the direction 
and regulation of forty communities of artizans and six companies of mer- 
chants. It is true that some little advantage had been gained in favor of 
the freedom of competition. About twenty branches of business were 
taken out of the control of the monopolists, and left free to be pursued by 
all who chose to enter them. 

An enumeration of theseyree departments will make known how desira- 
ble or rather how undesirable were the callings which avarice and selfish- 
ness had now at length consented to relinquish. 

They were the trades of nose-gay venders, brush makers, fiddle-string 
makers, cotton and wool carders, women milliners, rope makers, pedlars, 
whip-makers, gardeners, flax-women,' hemp-spinners, dancing masters, 
mat makers, bird sellers, bead makers, cork makers, fishermen, who catch 
only with rod and line or with spear, cobblers, weavers, basket makers, and 
night men. 



13 

It is perhaps, to the fact of these several occupations being opened to 
general competition, while all other pursuits remained closed against it, that 
we owe the host of French milliners, French dancing masters, and French 
flower makers, who even down to our own times, show their agility or their 
dexterity in every corner of Christendom. 

The reign of the corporation system among mechanics, and its baleful 
influence on trade, industry and ingenuity, M'as not confined to that natioa 
of Europe, along whose history we have been casting a hasty glance; but 
in Flanders, too, ever celebrated for the talents of its artizans, a system of 
the same kind was early established, which, as long ago as the time of 
Edward the third, drove multitudes of ingenious men to seek protection 
and support in England. But here, again, they were only less annoyed 
and harrassed than in their own country, by the jealousy of the monopo- 
lists. The English corporations of artizans were bound to pay a double 
tribute, one to the crown and the other to the towns in which they were 
established. They, consequently, found no diftiulty in rousing a spirit of 
jealousy against those artizans, and especially against those inventors who 
came from foreign countries to introduce new arts, new implements, ma- 
chines and processes of manufacture. 

The policy of those corporations had long been to keep down the 
supply of goods, and to extort high prices for the necessaries and conve- 
niencies of life. Improvement in the qualities of their productions was of 
course out of the question. 

" Each company," says an eminent writer, " seemed to labour to manu- 
facture not the best goods, but the best regulations for keeping up their 
prices." 

But individuals of the same trade, who did not choose to be trammelled 
by their despotic rules, and the public who were to be furnished with the 
products of labour, alike suffered by their crafty devices. 

It was fortunate, perhaps, that in England, earlier than in any of the 
countries of continental Europe^ the arbitrary measures of the monopolists 
roused the indignation of the public to a pitch, which resulted in the per- 
petual banishment of the system. This was effected in the reign of James 
the first, in 1623. One efficient cause of their overthrow was their 
constant and persevering opposition to all new inventions, against which 
some of their most atrocious acts of oppression were directed. To suppress 
these and to harrass their authors appear to have been objects of their con- 
stant care. 

Not only did they neglect to encourage inventive genius, but by positive 
and formidable impediments, they effectually prohibited the attempt to 



14 

innovate on any of the long prescribed routines of their respective arts. 
Heavy fines were levied on all those who departed, whether for better or 
for worse, from the regular processes and established usages of the craft to 
which they belonged. The companies and wardenships thrust out of 
their respective corporations all who were found guilty of the crime of in- 
venting anything new, however useful it might be — closed against them 
the doois of their workshops, harrassed them wiiL penalties or ruined them 
by lawsuits. 

The most fortunate of the unhappy sons of ingenuity, were glad to ob- 
tain the privilege of working according to their own improved methods, 
without attempting to introduce them to others. In other words, they re- 
ceived as a boon, or bought with money, the right of enjoying their own 
property^ the labour of their own hands, the right to do their own work, in 
their own way. 

As this subject is both curious and instructive as a matter of history, and 
salutary as a warning beacon to the artizans of our own day, some few 
well authenticated facts in relation to this second topic of our remarks may 
not be uninteresting. 

The French writers for example, inform us of many instances in which 
the progress of science, as well as of the arts, was absolutely impeded by 
the vexatious interference of these corporate despotisms, to prevent the in- 
troduction of improved implements and methods of working. 

Thus the celebrated philosophical and mathematical instrument maker, M. 
Lenoir, had occasion to employ a small furnace to prepare the metals and 
alloys adapted to his various purposes — he accordingly had one construct- 
ed; but the syndies of the corporation of founders, learning the fact, came 
to his establishment, and with their own hands demolished the furnace ; 
and all because he was not a member of their fraternity. After several 
vain attempts to restore it, he was finally compelled to obtain by a royal 
mandate the special privilege of preparing his own materials in his own 
furnace. 

M. Argand, the celebrated inventor of the lamp which bears his name, 
was prosecuted by the tinners, the locksmiths, and the sheet iron workers ; 
who enjoyed among them, the exclusive right of making lamps, and denied 
it to him, on the ground that he had never been received as a master work- 
man in either of their trades. 

Again, M. Rev^illon, the first to introduce the manufacture of wall paper 
into France, was annoyed with prosecutions until he obtained the title 
of " royal manufacturer," whereby he freed the laborers required in his es- 
tablishment from the domination of the wardens. 



15 

By persecutions such as these, inventors were frequently driven from 
their native land, and compelled to seek among strangers the asylum and 
the rewards which were denied them in iheir own country. Thus the press 
for striking medals was invented by Briot, in France, in 1615, but not be- 
ing allowed to bring it into use there, he carried it to England, where it 
remained for a long time in use, but wholly unknown to the artizans of its 
native country. 

The paper mill, with a cylindrical engine was also invented in France in 
1630, and carried to Holland, where it remained in use a century and a 
half before it was allowed to return. 

The stocking loom was invented at Nismes ; but the inventor, thwarted in 
his attempts to bring it into use in P'rance, went over to England, where he 
was richly rewarded for his importation of this valuable machine, but was 
near losing the credit of his ingenuity through the then existing jealousy 
against Frenchmen, which impelled the English to attempt transferring the 
merit to one of their own countrymen. Further examples might be cited 
of the discouragement offered to the introduction of the woollen, cotton and 
linen manufacture at Nantes, the japan ware making, the calico printing, 
the coining dies, the gauze loom, the art of cotton dyeing, and several other 
branches long retarded or absolutely expelled from the land to find protec- 
tion in other parts of the world. 

What has now been adduced shows that the ancient system of monopo- 
lies was as hostile to the inventive genius of artizans as it was to the free 
competition of industry to the wholesome stimulus of labour. 

An eye witness, (Roland de La Platiere,) has furnished some account 
of the conduct of those to whom the enforcement of corporate regulations 
was entrusted. 

" The execution of these regulations," says he, " necessarily involves a 
violation of private sanctuaries, furnishes a pretext for prying into work- 
shops, throwing whole establishments into confusion, exposing every 
corner and private receptacle to the gaze of strangers, seizing and appropri- 
ating the secret processes which sometimes constitute the entire fortune of 
the artizan ; suspending labor, scrutinizing private affairs, and exposing the 
pecuniary circumstances and credit of individuals. For some slight irre- 
gularity of material or structure — for the want of a few threads in the chain ^ 
or for an unavoidable defect of color — I have seen," says the writer above 
named, " eighty, ninety or a hundred pieces of cloth cut up into shreds and 
destroyed in a single morning, and this not for once only, but the same 
scene renewed, week after week, for years. I have seen other cloths 
seized and confiscated, while heavy fines were imposed on the luckless 



16 

■manufacturer; others openly burnt, on market days, in the public squares; 
and others, where the roll of cloth was exposed with the name of the 
maker attached to it, by a chain, which they threatened to fasten about his 
own neck, cloth and all, and compel him to wear it, as a badge of ignominy, 
in case he again violated their rules by any innovation?'^ 

"I have seen these corporation spies, with their bands of satellites, enter 
the private houses of manufacturers, spread terror into their families, over- 
haul their workshops, cut webs from their looms, and take them away, 
summon the owners before them for trial, subject them to inquisitorial 
examinations, confiscate property, assess fines and post up and publish 
their sentences, with all the consequent vexation, obloquy, shame, expense 
and loss of credit to the owner. And all for what ? Why, only because 
he had made a certain article out of wool, (as they do in England, and 
which the English are selling in every quarter of Europe, even here in 
France) but which our French regulations had only mentioned as being 
made out of hairP"^ 

"I have seen the camlet manufacturers treated in the same manner, for 
having made their goods of a particular breadth, conformable to that com- 
monly used in England and Germany, extensively employed in Spain and 
Portugal and constantly demanded in France by numerous consumers of 
the article, but forbidden to be manufactured here, because our wise regu- 
lations have prescribed a different breadth for camlet. 

"I could mention," he adds, "twenty sorts of goods manufactured abroad, 
bought and sold throughout the world, and all urgently desired in France, 
but which no one here dares to imitate, for fear of the repetition of scenes 
such as I have described." 

From all that we have cited of the ancient exclusive system, for 
controlling the arts and artizans of Europe, and of its tyrannical persecution 
of inventions and improvements, it is no wonder that the indignation of the 
public, wliich led to the repealing statute of 1623, by which the mono- 
polies of England were swept away, should have been accompanied by so 
much sympathy for inventors as to cause their rights to be fully recognized 
and established by that same statute. Instead of withholding all counte- 
nance to improvements, that statute expressly authorized the King to issue 
his letters patent, granting the free enjoyment of an exclusive possession 
"and practice for the period of 14 years, of such inventions, as were not 
contrary to law, prejudicial to the Slate, detrimental to commerce nor dis- 
advantageous to the public." 

In view of the existence in Europe of such a system for the oppression of 
Jiuman labour, and that at the very period of the American Revolution, it is 



17 

not surprizing that our fathers placed among the natural and inalienable 
rights of man that of the free exercise and enjoyment of his own labor, skill 
and industry. 

# ' 

Accustomed as we are, in this age, and in this country, to regard the right 
of laboring in whatever vocation each individual may select, as an undeniable 
right, we can with difficulty bring ourselves to believe that rules so oppres- 
sive, and involving absurdities so glaring as some of those to which we have 
referred, could ever have been submitted to by large portions of any commu- 
nity. And, when we recollect what was the colonial state of this country, 
how totally dependent our fathers were, less than three-fourths of a century 
ago, upon the mother country, for the productions of the most ordinary handi- 
crafts, and how, to sustain the workshops of Britain, it was thought neces- 
sary sedulously to exclude the mechanic arts from America;— when we 
recal to mind that the coarsest of cotton fabrics then came wholly from 
beyond the sea,— that to replace any piece of cast iron, an order must be 
sent to England,— that every pane of glass, to say nothing of more difficult 
products in that material, must be imported,— that a machine or instrument 
containing a brass screw was ruined past remedy if that screw were lost,— 
that chemical work shops were unknown, and paints and dyestuffs so rare 
that many wooden houses, even in cities, remained, a hundred years, guilt- 
less of the one, and all the garments of all their occupants destitute of the 
other, (save when the rusty copperas tub or the savory indigo pot were put 
m requisition, or where the fleece of a black sheep and that of a white one 
were cunningly intermixed, to produce a dirty "salt and pepper" color,) and 
that all cutlery was in such request that many persons, otherwise strictly 
honest and conscientious, were found unable to resist the temptation of steal- 
ing carpenters' tools;— when we recur to facts like these, and know that 
they were the direct results of governmental policy, we can easily under- 
stand why, at the era of our independence, that inalienable right of man to 
the free exercise of his various bodily and mental powers should have 
required a solemn and formal promulgation. The oft repeated usurpations 
of power, and the frequent practical denials of this right by European 
despots, had, as we have seen, called forth the eflbrts of artizans to cast off 
the odious shackles; and, in sympathy with their spirit, our fathers, in 
laying down the solid basis of human liberty, (not for themselves only or 
for their own times, but for all ages-aye, and, as we now see, for all 
nations, too) that grand essential principle, the freedom of industry, was 
made a corner stone of the glorious edifice. 
On the basis of that English statute, enacted 226 years ago, has all the 



I8f 

liberal legislation of the world for encouraging inventions been subsequent- 
ly founded. And what were its own natural foundations ? 

It must be evident to the most superficial* observer, that progress in the 
arts, depends on the rewards of improvement; and that since improvements 
depend on patient thought, careful observation and profound research, it is 
Indispensable to the attainment of these, that some certain undeniable re- 
wards should be held out as stimuli to inventive genius. Since the thoughts 
and reflections of an individual are in a peculiar sense his own property, 
since tyranny cannot induce, and force cannot compel the soul to yield up 
her treasures of thought, so neither can the bare wishes of men, however 
keenly felt or earnestly expressed, be supposed adequate to call forth the 
powers and capabilities of the most gifted intellects. 

Every new conquest over nature gives to him who makes it, a lawful ac- 
quisition, and to society at large, a useful species of wealth. But to bestow 
on those who have contributed towards a discovery or invention, neither 
ingenuity, thought, nor labor, the same benefits, as on him who has ex- 
erted all these, is certainly the most palpable injustice. 

But on the other hand, the privilege granted for an exclusive enjoyment 
of any improvement ought not, injustice to society at large, to be perpetu- 
al, since, in the progress of human events, many besides the fortunate first 
inventor are likely to arrive at the same result. Hence, though he may 
have deserved a recompense for preceding the rest of the world in improve- 
ment, his reward ought not to be a perpetual monopoly. 

The man who most richly deserves a reward for contributions to our 
common stock of physical and consequent social enjoyments, is he who 
unites the characters of both discoverer and inventor ; who by patient in- 
vestigation and careful experiment has proved the existence of some law of 
nature previously unknown, and who by ingenuity, industry, and pecuniary 
expenditure, has brought his discovery to a useful application. 

While these measures for encouraging invention are perfectly consistent 
with the natural rights of the individual, they ultimately secure to society 
the full and free enjoyment of those benefits which ingenuity, skill and en- 
terprise ever confer on civilized man. 

The great majority of inventors are doubtless the mere moulders of other 
men's discoveries, without the least valid pretension to the name of dis- 
coverers. To such, though the laws may make no difference, yet moral 
feeling and enlightened opinion will always assign a different rank from 
that of the man who both furnishes the material of knowledge and gives 
it the form of a useful art. Thus Franklin discovered the identity of 
lightning and electricity, and upon his previous knowledge of the power of 



19 

tnetals to conduct discharges of the latter, he founded his invention of 
the lightning rod. Davy discovered that flame will not readily pass 
through the meshes of line wire gauze, and on this founded his invention 
of the miner's safety lamp. 

Hare discovered that separate jets of oxygen and hydrogen, brought to- 
gether at the moment of ignition, could be safely burned, and would pro- 
duce as high an intensity of heat as if the whole volume of gases had been 
previously intermixed ; and this discovery he made the basis of his inven- 
tion of the compound blow pipe. 

Illustrations of this kind might be multiplied, but it must be admitted 
that they are rather exceptions than general illustrations of the character of 
inventors. 

As to the mode of encouraging inventive genius, and rewarding those 
who introduce new branches of industry founded on discoveries and inven- 
tions^ it may be said that Europe and America have alike adopted that ra- 
tional and efficient system which, we have seen, was introduced into Eng- 
land in 1623 — the system of exclusive rights for limited periods. As a 
general law, it first found footing in the United States in 1790 ; in France, 
in 1791, two years after the first revolution; in Naples and Portugal in 
1810; in Russia in 1812; in Prussia in 1815; in Netherlands and Bel- 
gium in 1817; in Austria and Spain in 1820; in Bavaria in 1825; in 
Sardinia in 1826; in Wurtenburg in 1828; in Sweden and Norway in 1834; 
in Saxony in 1843, and in the Dutch West Indies in 1844. 

Though deriving their general principle from the English Statute, these 
countries differ widely in their details of its application. In some, the ob- 
taining of patents is so impeded by formalities and burthened with ex- 
penses, that the laws tend little to encourage art or industry. In some, no 
inquiry is made as to the real novelty or utility of the invention ; while in 
others, one or both of these points are required to be fully established be- 
fore a patent can be granted. 

The system as established in the United States deals liberally wilh the 
inventor, both as to the amount of tax or fee imposed, and as to the bene- 
fit conferred npon him by the action of the public authorities. By insti- 
tuting examinations prior to the granting of letters patent, to determine, in 
advance, the actual novelty of the invention, much vexatious legal controver- 
sy is saved, as welWiis some portion of the expense which would be incurred 
in procuring patents for old and useless devices. Hence, though in a few 
instances injustice may have resulted from withholding the right for which 
application was made, yet in a far greater proportion of cases positive 
benefit has been done to the applicant by denying what, if granted, could 
only have led him into useless expense and litigation. 



20 

The Patent laws of the United States have now been in existence 59 
years. From their commencement down to the 1st of January, 1849, 
the number of patents issued has been 16,208, and this number would 
doubtless have been much greater had the laws continued as they were 
before 1836, when the system of examinations prior to the grant of letters 
patent, was established. Under that system, a large proportion of all the ap- 
plications is now rejected ; some, for want of essential novelty, and others, for 
want of suitable care and ability in preparing the required specifications and 
other documents. Notwithstanding this, it may be mentioned as a fact 
indicative of the high degree to which inventive genius is excited among 
us, that the number of patents granted in 1848 — exclusive of a few granted 
to foreigners, — was 649. 

To what subjects all this ingenuity has been devoted, and how it has 
been divided among the different branches of art, is an inquiry at once in- 
teresting and practical, and I will endeavour concisely to state the result. 

1. Of the whole 16,208 patents issued, 1966 or 12.03 percent, have had 
for their object. Agriculture^ its instruments and operations. This, as 
might have been anticipated, from the vast interest and importance of that 
department of industry, is the largest class. 

2. To the manufacture of fibrous and textile substances^ including ma- 
chines for preparing wool, cotton, silk, fur and paper, 1579 patented inven- 
tions or 9.74 per cent of the whole number, have been devoted. 

3. For calorific purposes^ comprising lamps, fire places, stoves, grates, 
furnaces for heating buildings, cooking apparatus and preparation of fuel, 
1479, or 9.12 per cent of the whole number of patents have been granted. 

4. To Metallurgy and the manufacture of metals and instruments there- 
for, 1384 patents or 8.54 per cent of the whole number. 

5. For chemical purposes^ manufactures and compounds, including med- 
icines, dying, colour-making, distilling, soap and candle making, mortars, 
cements, &.C., 1051 patents, or 6.47 per cent. 

6. For Hydraulics and pneumatics, including water wheels, windmills 
and other implements operated on by air or water, or employed in the rais- 
ing and delivery of fluids, 976 patents, or exactly 6.02 per cent of the en- 
tire number, have been granted. 

7. For Lumber working, including machines and tools for preparing and 
manufacturing, such as sawing, planing, mortising, shingle and stave, car- 
penters' and coopers' implements, 950 patents, or 5.86 per cent. 

8. For Household Furniture, machines and implements for domestic 
purposes, including washing machines, bread and cracker machines, feather 
dressing, &c. 724 atents, or 4.46 per cent, of the whole. 



21 

9. For Grinding Mills and mill gearing, containing grain mills, me- 
chanical movements and horse powers, 686 patents, or 4.23 per cent. 

10. For JVavigaiion and maritime implements, comprizing all vessels for 
conveyance on water, their construction, rigging and propulsion, diving 
dresses and life preservers, 615 patents, 3.79 per cent. 

11. Steam and gas engines^ including boilers and furnaces therefor, 654 
patents, 4.03 per cent. 

12. Civil engineering and Architecture^ comprizing works on rail and 
common roads, bridges, canals, wharves, docks, rivers, wiers, dams and 
other internal improvements, building roofs, &c. have had 596 patents — 
3.67 per cent of the whole. 

13. Leather manufactures^ including tanning and dressing, making of 
boots, shoes, saddlery and harness, 558 patents — 3.44 per cent. 

14. Land conveyance^ comprizing carriages, cars and other vehicles, used 
on roads, 558 patents — 3.44 per cent. 

15. Fine arls^ polite and ornamental, including music, painting, sculp- 
ture, engraving, books, printing, binding, and jewelry, 475 patents — 2.93 
per cent. 

16. Mechanical powers^ — viz. lever, screw, &c., as applied to pressing, 
weighing, raising and moving weights, 402 patents — 2.47 per cent. 

17. Stone and clay manufactures^ including machines for pottery, glass 
making, brick making, dressing and preparing stone, cements, and other 
building materials, 338 patents — 2.08 per cent. 

18. Wearing apparel, articles for the toilet, &c., including instruments 
for manufacturing them, 287 patents — 1.77 per cent. 

19. Mathematical instruments, Philosophical, optical; clocks, chronom- 
eters. Sec, 258 patents — 1.59 per cent. 

20. Surgical and medical instruments, including trusses, dental instru- 
ments, bathing apparatus, 253 patents — 1.56 per cent. 

21. Warlike Implements, fire arms and parts thereof, including the man- 
ufacture of shot and gun-powder, 230 patents, or only 1.41 per cent. 

22. And finally a miscellaneous and very heterogeneous class, forbidding 
systematic arrangement, 182 patents, or 1.12 per cent. 

Of all this varied multitude of objects towards which the inventive genius 
of America has, for the last fifty-nine years, been directed, it will be remark- 
ed, that, the first four classes, viz : ^Agriculture which yields food to man 
and beast, the manufacture of textile fibres^ which aflbrds clothing and vari- 
ous furniture; metallurgy, which supplies all the tools and implements of 
industry, and calorific processes which give heat and light for the comfort 
and manifold uses of daily life, comprise 2-5 of the entire number of inven- 
tions which have been patented in the United States. 



22 

Another remark is, that though in this aggregate of all the patents issued, 
Agriculture and textile fibres occupy the two highest places, yet when we 
compare shorter and more recent periods, as the last two years, for exam- 
ple, we find that metallurgy and calorific processes have both had higher 
proportions of the entire number of patents issued during that period, 
than either Agriculture or the textile fibre class. The multitude of im- 
portant discoveries of minerals and metals in our country within that 
time has turned a vast amount of inventive power in that direction. One 
should not, therefore, be surprised to learn that there is at this moment a 
perfect rush of gold washing machines into the Patent office, all ultimately 
bound, (like the rest of the world,) to California. The great and constant- 
ly increasing consumption of coal, may, in like manner, account for the 
large increase in late years, of the calorific class of inventions. Another 
remark worthy of attention is the small number of inventions which have 
had in view the implements and materials of warfare ; a very significant 
fact, which may serve to indicate that ours is, after all, essentially a peace 
loving nation. 

In respect to the distribution of the inventions now annually patented in 
the United States, a few facts may not be without interest. During the 
years 1847 and 1848, out of 1165 patents granted, the State of New York 
received 381, or almost exactly 33 per cent, of the entire number; of these 
the city of JVeio For^ alone obtained 174, or 45 per cent, of those granted 
to the State, and 15 per cent.* of all which were obtained in the whole 
Union. New York city is, therefore, doubtless the focus, where inventive 
genius is concentrated and acting with the greatest intensity. 

In the same two years, Pennsylvania received 177 Patents, or 15 per 
cent, of the whole number granted ; and of those of the whole State, 
Philadelphia received 55, or 31 per cent. 

In the same time, Massachusetts obtained 141 patents, or 12 per cent, of 
those of the Union ; and Boston had 54 of that number, or 31 per cent, 
of those given to the State. 

Ohio obtained 82; Connecticut 72 ; and Maryland 33; of which last 
number, Baltimore alone had 24, or 72 per cent., being a larger proportion 
of those of her State, than that of any other city in the UhIou. 

From this it appears that the three States of New York, Pennsylvania 
and Massachusetts have within the last two years contributed exactly 60 
per cent, of all the patentable inventions of the country. And these three 
are the States in which Mechanics' Institutes and Mechanics' Fairs have 
been longest established, — that of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia 
having led the way in 1826. 



23 

In 1847 the total number of patents granted to the 15 Southern Slates 
was only 65 ; of which number Maryland received 13, or exactly one-fifth 
of the whole. 

It is probably unnecessary to pursue the comparison. What has 
already been adduced, is sufficient to show that where the mechanic 
arts and the practical sciences are in the greatest activity, there inventive 
genius is also in the highest degree stimulated, and most successfully ap- 
plied. 

And let it not be imagined that all this activity of the inventive powers 
begins and ends with the production of some fanciful toy, or some vain 
and trivial change in old, familiar things. If time allowed, we could re- 
count multitudes of facts to show how much every department of art and 
industry has been indebted for its advancement to the inventions of our in- 
genious American mechanics. 

American ingenuity alone has given us those improved implements of 
husbandry, without which more than three-fourths of the present immense 
productions of our corn growing States could never have had an existence. 

Where were all the cotton fabrics of the world without the invention of 
Whitney ? 

Where, without Fitch &. Rumsey, and Fulton, were the defiance alike 
of calms and storms, on the broad bosom of the ocean ? 

Where, without Oliver Evans, were the high pressure steam engine, and 
all the thousand crafts that by its aid now stem our immeasurable rivers, 
and the hosts of locomotives which daily transport us farther and farther 
into the regions of the marvellous ? 

Where, without the crowning improvement of Morse, were the mystic 
network of metallic nerves which bind in instant communion and sympathy 
the heads of statesmen, the hands of merchants, the hearts of lovers, the 
eyes of astronomers, and absolutely anticipate the flight of time ? 

But I must desist. The past year has seen your own goodly city putting 
forth her energies in the great and good cause of the freedom of individual 
competition, the progress of practical science and the advancement of use- 
ful art. Through your thriving and vigorous institution, gentlemen of the 
Maryland Institute, have these eflbrts been commenced, and to your con- 
tinued exertions in the same cause must every philanthropic and patriotic 
citizen, bid a hearty God speed. 



Note. — For many of the historical details in the preceding remarks, the 
author is happy to acknowledge his obligation to the work of M. Renouard, 
entitled Traite des Brevets d' Invention and to the work on the same sub- 
ject by M. De Moleon in the Recueil Indusiriel 



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